Funny how anything widely adopted before I was born seems timeless and yet so much of it is quite new.
I've come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies: 1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. 2. Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. 3. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.
Then we had fun looking up a bunch of old TV show kitchens to see if they had a microwave. The earliest we found was Season 2 of Boy Meets World (1993) though there was a lively debate about whether the early seasons of Married with Children had a microwave or a toaster oven. Better than debating politics at least.
In That 70s Show, there is an episode in which the Foremans get a microwave.
And of course my dad (in his 60's) still remembers the time when there was no sewer and some people still had barrels of sewage that were picked up once a week.
This is still the norm in some (many) places. In my home country about 27% of the population only has an outhouse. Mainly in the rural areas.
...and if that is surprising, the more surprising thing is a lot of people still live this way in large parts of the world.
There's always a long lead time between technology becoming available and becoming ubiquitous the world over.